So I had a birthday party Friday night. This isn’t very peculiar. However, there were a few items of interest that do make that list labeled peculiar. First of all, as most of you know, I’m almost thirty now. So let’s just for ease of conversation, say that I am “twenty-seven” now. And then allow me to elaborate on those items I found peculiar.

First of all, I had a birthday party. That in and of itself should not be viewed as out of the ordinary. I wanted to have a few friends over, listen to some music, stand around and drink beer and tell each other war stories, and compare tattoos. Without necessarily taking our shirts off. It’s not even really all that odd that there would be a cake for me. I mean, well, actually I specifically told Haycomet not to make me a cake. But she wouldn’t have any of that. “If I make one for everyone else, of course I’m going to make one for my partner in rhyme.” She does have a valid point. So thus, I had a cake at my party. No candles, of course. But there was a cake. A ridiculously extravagant cake, no less. A Cake. Capitalized. One that someone might have paid perhaps upwards of a couple hundred dollars for. So what was so odd?

Well once you get to a certain point in decorating and preparing for a birthday party, you come to cross a line. And my red-haired wife hung the happy birthday banner thing above the table. Ehhhh, okay. Then she draped a themed tablecloth over the table. Ahem. We’re getting there, folks. Then she bought matching themed plates, napkins and cups. Sniff. Yeah. She got a little carried away. The only thing missing, in fact, were the small plastic bags in which you hand out party favors. Perhaps she just forgot those.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not at all that I don’t appreciate all of this. It was very classy and tastefully done. It looked very nice. And of course, I thought it was awesome. A space-themed birthday party all the way to the napkins. And something that strikes me as odd was that all these people attended a “twenty-seven-year-old’s” birthday party where there was all this decorating, and no one even mentioned it. Like, “Dude, seriously?” or “Hey, Space, what’s with the astronaut plates, dude?” So I guess that means everyone was either expecting it, or just very cool with it. Maybe it takes them back to their childhood days. Either way, it was pretty cool to be treated to such a dazzling show of effort.

The other peculiar thing that happened (being that it was one of my parties) was that no one’s top came off the entire night – Siege not included, of course. I just fully expected one of the ladies to get a little too carried away, a little too excited by the Foreigner on the stereo, and suddenly – bam, there she goes, breaking out the goods. Maybe it was because it was so cold outside. Ah well, it was still a good party.

We played a nice rousing game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey while we listened to Phil Collins’s No Jacket Required album, then moved onto a powerful, full-contact game of Skip Bo, and finished off with a very exciting series of I Spy where every time it was Siege’s turn he always happened to spy something for which someone would have to lift her shirt. Which no one did. Hence his being crowned the champion. Next year we shall define the rules a little more clearly, stating that if no one takes her top off, you can’t actually spy the boobs beneath.

It was a good party though, and fun was – indeed – had by all. And we made it all the way through the night before a drama bomb went off. Which is rare. An uninvited neighbor usually makes a drunken appearance, gets jealous that she didn’t get to show her boobs, and things start getting out of hand. Boobs included. No one’s wallet (at least to my knowledge) got stolen, and I ended up with some pretty good gifts. As Howie “The Old Jew” Goldberg informed me, it’s bad etiquette to mention gifts in any capacity on an invitation. He said requesting that people do or don’t bring gifts either way is bad etiquette because that’s exactly what it is: a gift.

But I had thought of mentioning that no one was actually required to bring me anything. I didn’t want people to feel obligated to get me a gift just so they could show up to the party. Some didn’t, but some did. And those gifts I did get were pretty tolerable. A twelve-year-old bottle of single-malt scotch, for instance. A gigantic bottle of Evan Williams black label. A gift card to Best Buy. (Have you heard of it?) A t-shirt that reads “Spaced Out” above a space suit-wearing smurf. A hand-made sketch book. A sausage and cheese gift set. Don’t laugh. That shit was amazing. So while maybe not quite like a bandit, so to speak, I did indeed make out. And no, I’m not talking about that little interlude I had with Aaron’s date over my cake where she smeared it all over my face and hair and tried to eat it off. That was just the icing.

So another year has gone by, and – though I haven’t written in over a week (you must forgive, our company has been in the middle of a major IT fiasco) – I have aged another few months. I have also found a new story buried somewhere beneath the surface of my conscience. I’m ready to start writing again. So it’s already shaping up to be a good year. Thanks to everyone who attended the party. We’ll see you all next year.

Click here to see the pictures.